


A Voice Weeping in the Distance

by muttthecowcat22



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Connection, M/M, References to depression and anxiety, victuri bang 2018
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 12:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16492913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muttthecowcat22/pseuds/muttthecowcat22
Summary: He was sitting in the stands, then, watching Victor Nikiforov skate his winning program. And as Victor finished his program, spinning fast and halting with his back arched and his arms thrown over his head, Yuuri felt . . . hate.Hate.It was from his soulmate. Yuuri’s hands shook. He balled them into fists.His soulmate hated Victor Nikiforov.





	A Voice Weeping in the Distance

**Author's Note:**

> I was able to work with the amazing [dead-exitium](http://dead-exitium.tumblr.com/), who created the beautiful artwork for this fic! Please check it out! [Here's the link to the main art post!](http://dead-exitium.tumblr.com/post/179662110807/and-one-more-collaboration-for-victuri-big-bang). Thank you so much for working with me! Everything looks beautiful <3
> 
> I'd also like to thank everyone who organized and participated in the Victuri Bang this year! Thanks for making this experience great!

Yuuri was sitting in the stands when he first noticed it, looking back, he should have known long before. But, he hadn’t known, hadn’t noticed until it was almost too late.

It was at World’s. He had skated for Japan . . . and finished in 12th place. Far from what he wanted, but he wasn’t surprised, not at all.

He was sitting in the stands, then, watching Victor Nikiforov skate his winning program, the one time each year Yuuri was guaranteed to see him skate in person. Victor cut across the ice in sparkling blue, and Yuuri couldn’t help but feel his spirits rise with the flow of the music, with Victor’s Ina Bauer.  And as Victor finished his program, spinning fast and halting with his back arched and his arms thrown over his head, Yuuri felt . . . hate.

Hate.

It was from his soulmate. Yuuri’s hands shook. He balled them into fists.

His soulmate, who had been there for Yuuri, comforted him before his skate, when Yuuri had failed anyway. His soulmate who loved skating too, who had to be close, in the same building, . . . who Yuuri had been unable to find.

His soulmate hated Victor Nikiforov.

-

Yuuri had thought for a long time that he didn’t have a soulmate.  He had tried and tried to feel something, anything, while Yuuko and Takeshi practically began trading thoughts during high school.  By the time he had begun skating competitively in the novice division, he had given up. 

Not everyone had a soulmate.  Yuuri would be fine.  He had his family, ballet, and skating.  Maybe one day he would find another lost soul that had been passed up as well.

In the meantime, Victor Nikiforov rose to fame like a shooting star.  The walls of Yuuri’s room filled with posters of his new idol.  Yuuri wanted to skate like him; he wanted to meet him.  But, they were inevitably in different divisions.  Yuuri never had a chance.

Victor never mentioned a soulmate in any of his interviews. 

Yuuri knew it was wrong, but he secretly hoped that Victor didn’t have one either.

Then, he had felt it for the first time.  When he was thirteen, nearly half a year into competing in juniors, he’d traveled with his parents to Tokyo for a new boot fitting.  It had been around the same time as the NHK Trophy.  Yuuri had secretly hoped for some way to attend despite knowing that NHK tickets were more coveted than any other Grand Prix event.

So he sat in the small, cramped space of the skate shop that smelled of new leather as the competition began.  Yuuri never liked the trips to the skate shop.  He always felt out of place, as if he wasn’t a good enough skater to be able to try on new boots despite his growing shoe size.  He sat on the sizing table, sinking into his shoulders to make himself small, invisible, when he felt a touch of happiness at the back of his mind.

It didn’t feel like he expected.  Just a brush, brief, fleeting, but there.  There where before there was nothing, emptiness.

Yuuri had a soulmate.

He couldn’t think about anything else the entire day.  He tried on boots without really thinking about it, smiling.  He walked out the door with his mom and a smile.  He could already feel himself skating, soaring in his new skates, his soulmate watching him, feeling their joy.

He felt the brush of happiness again as they were eating dinner at a small ramen stand.  It felt stronger, warmer, the second time, and didn’t fade, just hovering there in the back of his thoughts, lulling him to sleep on the ride home.

When he came to, back home in Hasetsu, the feeling had faded, but Yuuri no longer felt an empty place in his mind.  His soulmate was there, a subtle but real presence.

That night, Yuuri watched playbacks of Victor Nikiforov’s performance from the NHK Trophy, and he felt a pang of guilt.  Yuuri finally knew he had a soulmate.  Did Victor really not have one of his own?

Victor’s performance was more beautiful than ever.  The sharp angles of his new costume highlighted his recently shortened hair.  The strong steady music filled the guest room at the onsen where Yuuri sat in front of the TV, but Victor turned the strong beats liquid, flowing over the ice with more passion and joy than Yuuri had ever seen.  It was almost tangible, the pure emotion behind it.  He won by over ten points.

The magazines in the coming weeks speculated that Victor had finally found his soulmate.  Yuuri was happy for him, despite a small sense of loss, of change from what his life had been before, from what he had hoped for.

After that day, Yuuri tried reaching out to his soulmate multiple times with some success.  The connection always felt strongest, warmest when he was skating. 

At times he’d feel the barest hint of distress at the back of his mind.  He’d try to focus on all the good feelings he could muster in response.

When he missed the podium at his first junior Grand Prix preliminary by a fraction of a point, he’d felt his soulmate return the favor.  A brush of warmth that carried him through the day despite his devastation.  His soulmate felt closer than ever, physically closer, in the same city or even building perhaps.  He searched for them.

But Yuuri never found anything tangible.  Never anything that could give him a hint of where to find his soulmate.

The same feeling of closeness multiple times, always at skating competitions, so Yuuri decided that his soulmate must love skating too.

Yuuri was still in juniors when things began to shift. 

He still watched Victor Nikiforov, aspired to his skating, and it always brought him joy.  It was Victor’s second Grand Prix title when Yuuri couldn’t feel the happiness that he’d always felt for his idol. He thought, perhaps, it was himself, jealous or sad over his own skating career, so he didn’t pay it much mind.  He didn’t feel that way all the time, and he supposed it was to be expected if he felt anxious.

He never suspected those feelings were his soulmate’s until that day at World’s.

Yuuri tore his eyes away from Victor.  He scanned the arena, searching for anything, any sign that might help him recognize his soulmate.

They had to be somewhere in the building, waves of emotion crashing over Yuuri, hatred, hopelessness, compounded by his own disappointment in himself.  Nothing from his soulmate had ever felt that strong before, piercing straight through his middle.  He bent over, resting his forehead on his fists, and tried to slow his breathing.  It was hard.  He didn’t deserve to be at Worlds, an embarrassment to his whole country, and the one thing he had enjoyed about the trip was ruined.

He had wanted to meet Victor.  Yuuri had been too nervous before the free skate, but there would be time after the medal ceremony.  He abandoned that hope as another nauseous wave of sadness hit him, of longing.  He needed to find his soulmate.

Blurred faces passed him as he slipped out of the stands and into the hallway.  His legs felt unsteady, weak.  The waves kept the same strength, neither weaker nor stronger as he walked around the outside of the stands.  No direction to run in, no pull towards one side or the other.

He heard the music of the medal ceremony begin, and the waves cut off to nothing.

Nothing.

No trace of his soulmate.  An absence he hadn’t felt in years.

He clutched at his chest.  Called for his soulmate, reached for them.

Nothing.

He climbed the stands again, exhausted.  He’d missed the ceremony.  Victor was already leaving—waving to his fans as the new four-time World Champion.  Spectators filed down the stairs as Yuuri climbed. 

Celestino waved him over, congratulating him again on his placement—his disappointment, his defeat.  Yuuri leaned against the closest bleacher, barely standing.

He’d come all the way to Worlds and failed.  He’d been so close to Victor and worried too much to speak to him.  He’d been in the same building as his soulmate and couldn’t find them.

Maybe they didn’t want to be found.

Maybe they just didn’t want him.

-

“Hey, Yuuri. Are you okay?”  Waves of salty grease and tomato paste wafted from Phichit’s freshly microwaved pizza. 

It was midsummer.  Phichit had finally selected his program music for the year earlier that morning, once again putting off his dream of skating to “The King and the Skater” soundtrack.  Yuuri had yet to choose his own.

Yuuri nodded from the other side of their dorm room in his bed, where he’d been staring at his laptop.  “Victor’s about to skate,” he gave by way of reply, turning his laptop screen so Phichit could watch as well.

The lights were bright and warm in their room, reflecting off the bare walls above Yuuri’s bed.  Phichit turned them down as he shoved the first slice of pizza into his mouth, watching Yuuri more than the screen, a knowing look in his eyes.

The comfort of their room stood stark against the running emotions that Yuuri could feel in the back of his mind.  Ever since that day at World’s, months before, they’d been present any time Yuuri watched Victor skate, never as strongly as that day, but there. 

And when Victor wasn’t skating, Yuuri felt nothing.  He’d tried to reach for his soulmate for weeks until he’d just given up.

He worried he’d done something.  That he’d made his soulmate hate Victor . . . or himself.  Phichit had argued that it couldn’t possibly be Yuuri’s fault.  But the thought sat there, in the back of his mind with everything else.  So, Yuuri had stopped watching Victor, stopped following him on instagram, peeled all his posters off the walls.  He couldn’t decide on program music . . . because his programs had always been inspired by Victor.

So he’d waited, avoided any media concerning Victor, and hoped his soulmate would feel better.

Except nothing changed for weeks, months.  And despite his best efforts, Yuuri felt irritation, anger towards his soulmate for the first time.  He couldn’t understand.

To feel this way about Victor at each and every performance, his soulmate had to continue watching him as well, hurting every time Victor performed.  Why?

Victor’s current performance was a new program for his summer ice show.  The hundreds of red roses on his costume sparkled under the lights.  And Yuuri was determined to watch it live despite the consequences.

As Victor skated out, Yuuri felt the nothingness creep at him again.  He kept watching.

The [gentle music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUFcVHs2t68) that flowed out of the speakers surprised Yuuri.  Victor melted into it, his gold blades flashing with the first sweeping spiral.  He landed the few jumps in the program perfectly, the heavy footwork flowing despite its complexity. 

Just as Victor reached the halfway point of the program, Yuuri felt the nothingness creep at him again.  It even made Victor look passionless, flat despite his beautiful performance, tainting Yuuri’s vision. 

Why? Why was his soulmate doing this?  Yuuri was at a loss, exhausted.  A few angry tears slipped out from behind his glasses, startling Phichit.  But Yuuri waved him off.

Yuuri reached for his soulmate one last time.  He didn’t attempt to comfort, to send any form of happiness.  He merely reached, trying to feel anything, testing for a response with all his sadness, exhaustion, his anger.  He wasn’t even expecting anything.

And then it was there.  A flash of—not happiness, not a positive—just a small hope in a sea of sadness.  Gone again just as quickly.

Victor glided into his ending pose, arms draped to one side, the second half of his program shining with artistry.  For the first time since the spring, Yuuri found he could enjoy Victor’s skating.

And he knew then that he would still skate one of his programs that season for Victor.  But he could feel the presence in his mind again, there, hurting.  Yuuri wasn’t angry anymore.

He wanted to dedicate his free skate to his soulmate.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I really appreciate kudos and comments!
> 
> Find me @muttthecowcatridesagain on tumblr or @cowcatandsilver on twitter!


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